Rick Cooper provides a review of Defense of the Reich, a new set of four figures from Dragon. As good as the figures are, Rick's review is sure to put a smile on your face too.

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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

hmmm.. no pe fret of weapons slings like the other Gen2 issues?

There's a seemingly disconnect between the figures because Ron did the artwork for Concord, not DML (yeah, yeah, same company but an important note none the less). Ron hasn't actually produced new figure box-art for DML for a number of years now. It's only over the past 2 years or so that DML have been reproducing the Concord (and even some Osprey) artwork as kits. Normally they're selected from the same title though. This time it appears to be at least 3, perhaps even 4 different titles. I managed to identify 2, featuring the HJ and Fallschirmjager figures.

The "Volksturm" figure is actually a Hitler Youth Combat Volunteer attached to a Volksturm unit. He wears a dark blue HJ winter uniform. His volunteer status is displayed by wearing a red cord around his shoulder straps. A Volksturm armband is worn over top his HJ armband and above that is worn the black district badge. He wears a HJ badge on his cap. FWIW the knife is a HJ knife.

The Fallschirmjager is described as "1st Parachute Division, Italy, 1944". The uniform is fairly typical for the Mediterranean theatre from 1942 - 1945, so modellers should have plenty of use for this figure. Looks like a nice rendition of the FG42 - with the caveat that the photos aren't clear enough to see any casting issues.

Is there much flash on the parts? No reference is made to the quality of the cast in the review. Despite this being an In-Box I'd still expect to see at least a preliminary assessment of the cast quality.

I'm not sure why reviewers or modellers insist on banging on about the lack of rifle straps. Can nobody cut a bit of tape or thin plastic card to reproduce straps? IMO PE rifle straps are nothing but a PITA to get to hang or fit properly.

Just my 2 bob...

Rudi

Rudi I understand your thoughts on this but it would not exactly break the bank to have included the PE straps and or decals with the sets which is in the current climate would be an extra incentive to buy the product for very limited cost to the company to include. If I am honest I would love to see the inclusion of PE buckles for the straps and decals as these cost the end user in one case and are difficult to produce in the other.

I agree ... the etched straps are useless to get a nice fit. Buckles on the other hand, would be great to use with paper/foil/plastic/tape/etc straps. I always have an Aber set of buckles at home for this, but never use the Dragon straps. Decals for figures would be a great addition .... considering that Dragon figures are now > $20 in Sweden. MiniArt have includd these in some of their figure sets .... wish the other would follow!!

Nice to see a little humor in our reviews. Well done, Rick!

I've never been able to get a Dragon Gen2 PE weapon strap to fit properly so I use tape, but it would indeed be nice to have seen the PE included as the buckles and various other straps are always useful. All in all a great review Rick!